BENGALURU: The Commonwealth Science Conference concluded here on Friday, after four days of discussions among some of the world’s brightest minds. Over the course of the conference, there were sessions on global health, materials science, neuroscience, vaccines for infectious diseases, climate change, innovation and the Indian space programme.
On Tuesday, the inaugural day, the main topic of discussion was the need for trust in science. Sir Paul Nurse, Nobel laureate and president of the Royal Society, and Bharat Ratna recipient Prof C N R Rao were among those who spoke.
In one of the most compelling sessions of the conference, Prof Veerabhadran Ramanathan from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, California, dwelt on climate change and its impact. He compared the accumulated greenhouse gases to a blanket. “The blanket itself is not a source of heat but it keeps us warm by trapping heat. The addition of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere is adding to the thickness of the blanket,” he said.
In another session, Prof Virender Chauhan, director of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in New Delhi, spoke in great detail about the difficulties in finding a vaccine for malaria. He explained how a large number of antigens are involved at the time of infection and how some vaccines that worked on mice in clinical trials had not worked on humans.
Discussions on obesity, cervical cancer, AIDS and prevention of blindness in under-developed countries drew crowds and applause over the four days.
